The Diviner (31 page)

There was a kind of skewed logic to it, he supposed, smiling wryly as he ate his share of goat cheese and hard bread. If one didn't know exactly what one was supposed to believe in, one could not disbelieve it. Ayia, he would see this proved or disproved tonight.

Kemmal and Kammil approached on descendants of Khamsin. His heart swelled at the sight of his sons—tall and handsome and strong, qabda'ans of a hundred riders each, everything a father could wish. For a moment he felt kinship with his own father, knowing that Azzad's look of pride graced his own features now. And yet—

Pushing aside memory of Mirzah's tear-streaked face and icy blame, he addressed his young Haddiyat. “Kemmal will lead the Harirri up from the south. Kammil, take the Tallib down from the north. When you are in position—” He stopped, seeing them exchange glances and tiny smiles in the dimness. “What? Is there a problem? Have you questions?”

“No, Ab'ya,” said Kammil. “It's only that we've been over this a dozen times.”

“We know what to do,” Kemmal assured him.

“Ayia, then—go and do it. Acuyib smile upon you, my sons.”

“And on you, Ab'ya, always.”

As they rode off to organize their troops, Alessid berated himself for unnecessary repetition of his orders. His men knew what they were doing. In truth, his faith in his warriors was as absolute as in his hazziri—but he wondered if perhaps he was a little nervous. This was no skirmish with isolated contingents of Qoundi Ammar far from any settlement; this was the first time Alessid had attempted to take an entire town.

Though he had never been to Ouaraqqa, it was familiar to those of the Shagara who conducted trade for the tribe. He had spoken at length with them and studied the maps they had drawn, so when he gazed upon the town from the top of a hill, it was as if he had already been there a dozen times. Twice the size of Sihabbah, it sprawled at the bottom of a gorge, on the eastern side of a mountain stream that during spring runoff became a torrent. Ancient ruins on the western bank bore mute witness to foreign fools who had built on the flat flood plain rather than the slopes. Part of Ouaraqqa was mud brick, part of it was wood, and some of it—most notably the water mill that ground grain to flour—had been built of toppled stone temples from across the stream. Alessid thought about that for a moment, and smiled; the people of this land had turned the possessions of former conquerors to their own use. He wondered what of Sheyqir Za'aid's he would employ once the al-Ammarizzad were gone the way of the Qarrik and Hrumman and the northern barbarians. He could think of nothing the al-Ammarad had established in this country but hatred—and indeed they had tried to destroy utterly the one thing about which he and his father Azzad were in accord: the wealth of trees.

But renewing that wealth would come later. Right now he must take Ouaraqqa.

Only starlight glinted off the stream, thin in midsummer. The mill was silent, the flocks were gone to high summer pasture, the winding streets were empty of townsfolk. Only the occasional Qoundi Ammar rode through on patrol. All this was reported to him by Jefar Shagara, who despite the objections of his uncle Abb Shagara had been given permission by his parents to accompany Alessid on this assault. He had been given his horse in advance of his fifteenth birthday—a four-year-old half-breed mare named Filfila for the peppery black-and-gray dapples that made her blend into the night shadows. There was no prouder warrior in Alessid's cavalry. Nor, with the exception of his own sons, one Alessid would do more to keep safe.

Accordingly, he received the boy's report and sent him to the rear of the company. Jefar was not happy, but neither was he skilled enough yet with a sword to join in the attack. Alessid stroked Qishtan's glossy cream-gold neck and waited for his sons' messengers. When they came,and told him the Tallib and Harirri were arrayed as ordered, Alessid touched the hazzir at his breast and roared the command to charge.

The Qoundi Ammar in their arrogance and their contempt for the people of this land believed that no one would dare attack a town they held for Sheyqir Za'aid and his exalted mother. Alessid knew with regret that this arrogance would change once this night was over, but he had chosen his target with this in mind. Ouaraqqa was important to its own people only as a prosperous market town, but to the military mind it was vital: It commanded the only pass through this part of the mountains. For this reason, it was garrisoned with a force of two hundred. With this place in his hands, Alessid could isolate the Sheyqir's warriors who patrolled the south. Without support, without a home position, they would be easy prey for the Tabbor, whose lands they occupied.

It was risky in some ways; Challa Meryem had warned him that once liberated, the Tabbor might withdraw from the larger campaign. But he had to have Ouaraqqa to deny Sheyqir Za'aid this pass, and so Ouaraqqa must be taken.

The Tallib, with Kammil as their qabda'an, swept down from the north along the watercourse. And as they did, Alessid led his own troops in from the east, crushing the town on two sides. The Qoundi Ammar were roused from their garrison—the four largest houses in the center of town, commandeered without compensation for the owners. But their horses were not only penned far from the soldiers' quarters, they were now galloping down the gorge—for, from the south, the Harirri with Kemmal leading them had freed two hundred pure white stallions trained for war.

“Slaughter,” Kammil said afterward, with admirable succinctness. And it was true.

Alessid, inspecting the town by dawnlight, heard the cheers of Ouaraqqa's people and saw their grateful amazement that no one but Qoundi Ammar had been killed. His warriors had taken only minor wounds—and the ones who had were none of them Shagara. Moreover, they had separated townsfolk from enemy soldier as if they battled in full daylight. The most serious injury, in fact, was to a young Tallib skeptic who had not even been wearing his hazzir; he was knocked in the head by a low-swinging shop sign he hadn't seen in the dark. After he came back to consciousness and learned how few of his companions had been wounded in the fighting, he was a skeptic no longer.

Alessid accepted the invitation of the town elders to share their morning meal. As they lauded his courage, his skill, his daring, and his brilliance over strong qawah and the softest bread he had ever eaten, he knew that it would never be this easy again.

A
ll that remained was Hazganni. Alessid remembered the city from his childhood: a cheerful maze of shops, houses, mansions, gardens, warehouses, and the huge central zouq where once he and his brother Bazir had escaped Fadhil's watchful eye for one whole delightful afternoon. The belting they had received that evening had been well worth the excitement. In the vast zoqalo, all manner of vendors sold a dizzying variety of merchandise: whole rainbows of bright silks and woven woolens, thread and yarn, buttons and lengths of embroidery, spices and candies, shoes and scarves and cloaks and gloves, pottery jars, brass plates, bronze bells, copper bowls, “silver” jewelry that was really tin, wooden toys . . .

There was also an array of “medical” specialists, hawking cures for the bald and the ugly, the sore and the lame, and every disease with which Chaydann al-Mamnoua'a had ever afflicted humankind. Bazir's favorite had been an old man in the very center of the zoqalo who sing-songed his skills while pacing back and forth on a garish carpet, a gruesome collection of clamps and pliers jingling from a chain around his neck as he rattled a tray of successfully yanked teeth. Alessid, gazing down at the city from the hills, smiled to think that perhaps that same old man would be there, exhibiting his souvenirs to other wide-eyed, deliciously horrified boys. The great zouq had been a magical place, and Alessid had loved the tangle of it, the smells, the noise, the swift brilliance of color and movement.

But he was told that the zoqalo was nearly empty now, nearly silent. The local vendors were all too terrified to set foot outside their own shops, if any. The towers and walls built at Sheyqir Za'aid's order kept folk from the countryside from freely entering the city with their wares. There was poverty within and without those walls. From a hilltop three miles from Hazganni, Alessid cursed Sheyqir Za'aid for the people's sake.

For his own, he damned the man for destroying the trees. Not because his father had either planted them himself or encouraged others to do so; not because without them there was no protection from the ever-hungry desert; not even because of his childhood memories of playing beneath those trees. The groves would have made cover enough for an army twice the size of Alessid's. Now there was nothing between him and Hazganni but miles of dead open country.

Turning his back on the city, he walked downhill to his tent. There, beside the fire, Jefar was brewing qawah for the qabda'ans. The warriors of the Za'aba Izim were consolidated now, over a thousand strong. They knew how to fight; every man had been in at least ten actions. Their horses—many of them pure white, captured from the Qoundi Annam—were fully trained to war. Alessid had kept them in their original groupings, one for each of the seven tribes. But they knew they must now become a single force, to take Hazganni.

Alessid stood apart for a few moments, surveying the qabda'ans. Despite having been divorced by their wives, Kemmal still led the Tallib and Kammil was qabda'an of the Harirri. Alessid's third son, Addad, was in no danger of being divorced; his wife was hugely pregnant, and the Azwadh followed the husband of their beloved Black Rose as if he had been born one of them. Alessid had blood ties to the Ammal, as well, for Mirzah's grandmother and great-grandmother had been of that tribe. The qabda'an of the Tabbor had wed Mirzah's close cousin. Only the Tariq had no intimate ties to Alessid. The Shagara themselves were, of course, Alessid's personal army.

Over a thousand, all told. Within Hazganni and patrolling its walls were more than twice that number.

Accepting the cup Jefar offered him, Alessid sat on a flat rock and addressed his qabda'ans. “Aqq'im, my esteemed brothers, we cannot storm the walls of this city. They will see us coming for miles, even at night with a dark moon. It seems to me there are two alternatives. Either we face them in open battle on the plain outside the city, or we destroy them from within.”

They all knew that neither would be easy to accomplish. Why should the Qoundi Ammar come out to do battle, when all they need do was laugh atop the towers? And how could anyone get inside a city so tightly shut that not even a snake could slither inside unremarked?

“If we
could
get inside,” mused Addad, “the people might aid us. Surely they know what we've done for others, what we hope to do for them.”

“Grandson,” said Razhid, “when Sheyqir Za'aid first came here, the people of Hazganni capitulated rather than fight for their city and their freedom. After nearly twenty years, can you think they would suddenly rise up?”